New Yorkers can now taste some of the best dishes Singapore has to offer, with the official opening of the first food hall hawking delicacies from the Southeast Asian city-state.
Urban Hawker, which opened to the public on Sept. 28, was originally conceived as a $350 million market by the late Anthony Bourdain eight years ago. Its current form on West 50 Street is the result of a push by KF Seetoh, a Singapore food gourmet and friend of the late travel food host, who died in 2018.
But brace yourselves for eye-popping prices. A plate of the classic Hainanese chicken rice—the de-facto national dish that costs an average of S$4 ($3) back home—will set you back by $17 in the Big Apple. Still, that won’t deter residents in the metropolis who are accustomed to $18 sandwiches.
Food centers like Urban Hawker are common and woven into the fabric of life in the Asian financial hub, offering affordable street snacks consumed in sheltered spaces with communal seating. Some have become local attractions in their own right. For instance, Lau Pa Sat houses vendors in a restored Victorian-era building located in the heart of the financial district.
The food atrium had a soft launch last week with limited numbers of guests coming through. Still, they served as many as 500 orders of chicken rice every day.
Although nestled among office towers like its Asian counterpart, the 11,000-square feet hall is twice as large, and features 11 stores with Singapore origins. It is also tapping a fan base for the cuisine: a stall opened by another Singaporean chicken rice chain, Boon Tong Kee, in Las Vegas last year sold 4,500 plates of the dish in a week.
Below, some other notable Singapore-inspired fare available at Urban Hawker.
The burger joint operated by Lee Syafiq has six outlets in Singapore. It offers a range of local-themed fast food options, including a Singapore-style cheeseburger, a burger with grilled satay chicken, and roti john—a baguette sandwich stuffed with minced meat, sliced onions, eggs and sauces.
The restaurant started by Daisy Tan specializes in Malay-Chinese Peranakan cuisine. Dishes include Laksa—a bowl of rice noodles cooked in a spicy shrimp and coconut broth, served with sides like bean sprouts, boiled egg and fish cakes—as well as curry chicken and spicy steamed patties made of ground fish and spices known as otah otah.
First opened in 2017, the chain founded by Terry Neo sells traditional breakfast fare popular in Singapore, including toasts served with butter and the coconut marmalade kaya, half-boiled eggs with runny yolks served with pepper and soy sauce, and a range of coffee and tea. The New York outlet has more choices, including different tea bases like oolong or Earl Grey, as well as toppings like boba.
Prawn noodles is a popular comfort food dish featuring yellow egg noodles with toppings like prawns and pork meat slices, served either in a seafood broth flavored with pork ribs and prawn heads or dry with a mix of spicy and savory sauces. This stall, first opened by former fine dining chef Alan Choong in 2018, jazzes up the formula with additions like flame-torched pork belly, ramen noodles, and Ajitsuke tamago —a Japanese-style soft-boiled egg with a runny yolk.
The seven-outlet chain offers white beehoon—vermicelli noodles cooked with seafood like prawns and squid, served in an umami-flavored broth with eggs and vegetables. The dish has gained popularity in recent years in Singapore although its origins date back to 1999, with the chain’s original founder Tay King Huak claiming ownership of the dish.
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